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>> Donald Trump on Wednesday formally announcing former Texas Governor Rick Perry as his choice to lead the US Department of Energy, the agency he famously forgot while listing federal departments he wanted to eliminate.>> It's three agencies of government when I get there that are gone. Commerce, education, and the, what's the third one there, let's see.

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Oops.>> Perry's bid for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination ended two months after that debate meltdown, but he ran again in the 2016 election, a one time rival of the President-elect.>> There is nothing wrong in America today that a change of leadership will not make happen.>> Perry was indicted in 2014 by a grand jury in Texas on two counts of abuse of power and coercion.

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He was later cleared of all charges. More recently, Perry was on the latest season of Dancing With The Stars. He was the second contestant to be eliminated. In his statement, Trump touted Perry's tenure as Governor of Texas, a leading oil producer, saying he created a business climate that produced millions of new jobs and lower energy prices in his state and he will bring that same approach to our entire country as Secretary of Energy.

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Reuters US domestic policy correspondent, Andy Sullivan.>> Sources are telling us that Trump wants Perry at energy, despite, or perhaps because of his doubts about the agency's core mission. Perry backs fewer restrictions on oil and gas drilling, and has called the science behind climate change a hoax. He would oversee a department that's been central to Barack Obama's green energy push, doling out billions of dollars in federal seed money for things like electric cars, solar panels, wind turbines.

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Republicans see all of that as a waste of money. They want to scale it way back.>> The Perry pick fits a pattern of Trump nominating people who have been critical of the departments they would lead. Perry also joins nominees with close ties to the oil industry. On Tuesday, the Energy Department said it would not comply with the request from Trump's transition team for the names of all the people who have worked on climate change, signalling a rough transition ahead for that agency.